Visions

It is a little seaside town, populated with a few Matoran and three Toa. It is a peaceful place, but not a place that many people know about; mostly just its inhabitants, a visitor or two... and a darker presence.

We now move on to that very presence, which shall also be referred to as an "it" throughout this Vision... though this "it" is not the same.


It is present, always seeing, always knowing. It is not male, it is not female, and it is most certainly not a Toa.

It may be in the darkness at the base of the hills, at the root of the world, but it can see the whole of the town, and all of the inhabitants. How oblivious they are, and their minds so easy to use... except for one.

It manipulates the first Toa's mind without a trace of an effort, willing her to turn and see a Matoran floundering about in the protodermis ocean, and rescue the idiotic fisher. How gracelessly she and her Matoran move. How little of the world's precious darkness hang about their forms. These obvious facts disgust it.

It turns its attention to the second Toa, influencing him to see the same problem and assist his fellow Toa. He and his Matoran are as disappointingly lacking in darkness as the first, and just as clumsy and flawed.

It now shifts its attention to the third Toa. He is the only one with whom it is pleased. It takes no more effort to read his mind than the others, but it sees darkness in him, and great potential for more darkness. He has no Matoran. He walks alone, along the emptiest roads, on the loneliest beaches. But there is something in his memories. Perhaps something about happier days, days not underlined in darkness. But strangely, it cannot read those early memories of his.

This Time, as on the Times before, and stretching back through the billions of years, the third Toa begins to approach the other Toa. He wears the same grim expression as always, and none but it can sense the change underneath his exterior.

"Hello, all," he says, without a trace of interest. "How goes your work?"

The other two glare at him. They cannot yet answer him, for they have not yet gained their breath again. The Matoran who had fallen into the sea sits dazed beside them.

The third Toa continues without waiting for an answer. "Have you yet decided?"

"No," replies the first Toa, finally catching her breath. "Who knows what kind of energy could be within that vault?" Beside her, the Matoran stirs.

It knows about the vault. It has known about it since it was first made, long before the world was joined, long before the three Toa came and built the seaside town. There is energy indeed inside of the vault, behind those flat grey doors. It was not meant to be opened. But it is a Time, as with the Times before. It will be opened, whatever its purpose may have been.

The third Toa's frown deepens, his angled eyes darkening behind his mask. "I have for myself. If you two will not assist me, I shall open it myself."

The second Toa looks shocked, his eyes widening in a picture of surprise. "What are you thinking? You'll kill yourself, maybe even all of us."

The third Toa smiles coldly. "All in the name of science." He turns and strides off, along the Silverroad in the middle of the village, to the other side of the town, where the vault is buried. The others stare uncomprehendingly after him - how very foolish they are, it thinks disgustedly, not like their brother at all - then they realize, and run after him.

But he is ahead of them. He stands in front of the gate, running his hands over the fading symbols etched there, once upon a time so very very long ago, never for the benefit of Toa's eyes yet before them now. He hears the others, but continues his work uninterruptedly, his hands finally lighting on twin symbols near the middle of the door.

He turns to his one-time allies, staring them malevolently in the face. "You said it could not be done, that it should not be done, and that it would not be done. Not so very long ago was that. It reminds me of the days when I trusted you, and how that all ended. Hundreds died for your secrets, and I was nearly among them. Not today. Not anymore. The scientific truth shall prevail." He turns back to the doors and places his palms on the twin symbols, beginning to send his silvery twilight energy into the graven images. The other two lunge for him, nearly reach him, but they are too late.

The doors swing inward, and the third Toa steps inside. The others back away as they see what is inside: swirling, boiling clouds and bolts and flickers of energy, all colors and hues. But as the third Toa walks into the energy clouds, they swirl a last time, calm, and turn a shimmering silver. They wrap around the Toa's form like smoke or cloth. And he is unharmed.

He begins to step towards them, more lightly than either of the other two remember his footfalls being before. "So, it was dangerous, was it? It destroyed our town, and the world, and all of us? Your collective judgement has failed again, as it did so many years ago. What reason have I to trust you for another thousand years?"

As he receives no reply, he raises his hands. "It is finally time for action."

The silver energy scissors away from his form and shoots towards the other two, beginning to change color slightly again. But even as the cloud of energy reaches them, and they try to dodge away, it knows that the energy cloud will not harm them. It has known, it knows, and it will know. The world is at a Time, as with the Times before, and everything happens the same way in every cycle.

The energy-cloud hovers in the air before the three of them, and begins to grow larger and more agitated. There is no sign that the energy will stop expanding, but only the third Toa realizes what is wrong. He stares up into the energy, and whispers to himself. "This is a Time. This cloud and the energies therein, they are the energy of time. And it is a Time!" He finally knows everything. "I have created a loop, just as I always do every Time, every cycle." He sends the tendrils of his mind outward, his darkness reaching out and finding the only other one who knows what he knows: it. It would smile, if it could, but instead it just sends a single word back to him. Time.

He thinks back. This is Time? This is a cycle? He asks it the same thing every cycle, and each cycle of Time it answers the same.

This is Time. This is your fault. This will always be your fault. It feels nothing.

In the final moments of the Time, he realizes that the Times will always be his fault, and that the Times will never stop, and that the Times will always happen the same way.

So the next cycle begins. As with every Time, so with this Time. You cannot stop Time. You must merely let it work. It watches him in the final moments of the Time.

The whole world is filled with the energy-cloud of time now. And as it turns the clock back to the beginning...

"No..." the third Toa whispers. But his realization is far too late.

The universe shatters and restarts. And there is nobody but it to watch.

And it does so, for there is nothing else to do.

Once, so long ago, the seaside town was a busy port city, with hundreds (if not thousands) of traders offering their wares, and many ships coming in to unload their exotic wares every day. But that was long ago. The causes are unknown, but its fame and appeal wasted away to nothing. Nobody comes in now, and nobody leaves. Its Turaga dreams of the days before, when it was a living city; but they are just dreams. Time does not invert itself. And the Matoran of the seaside town can never be the same again.

The frail Plasma Turaga stares out the window in the stone tower in which he has spent his days for so long. Deep in his bitterness for his Matoran and his grief for his life, he knows he is a prisoner, no matter how comfortable he is. It was unfortunate - and, possibly, preventable - that he should suffer his current fate.

Yes, he had been a harsh Toa. After one of his Matoran was injured, he became over-cautious, cracking down on anything out of the ordinary or potentially dangerous. For a while, the rest of the Matoran accepted it.

Then something changed, and he was never sure what. However, whatever happened, his Matoran turned against them. The then-Plasma-Toa was hard-pressed to keep them in line, and despite the fact that trade was flourishing, there was sometimes an air of quiet mutiny about the Matoran native to the town.

Eventually, slowly, he regained their trust. He came to believe, as he must, that the Matoran could take care of themselves; that they could be the police of their own small problems, and he would tackle larger problems.

But then came the Fall. Trade declined, apparently for no reason. It happened little by little at first; particular ships would arrive late, or not at all. The crews that arrived late deflected the questions of why they were late, and eventually stopped arriving as well. The glory of the trading-town wasted away, and its Matoran turned desperate, though a few ships still came in, enough to buy the wares of the Matoran and ensure they survived.

But even that was before the arrival of the "Winged Death": a Kanohi Dragon. All the Matoran had heard the dread tales of the Kanohi Dragon, far off and long gone. Never did it cross their minds that any such horror would ever arrive in their lives.

The Kanohi Dragon was small and must have been a young one, the Matoran would later say, for their lone Plasma-Toa was able to drive it off through the mountains, fulfilling his destiny as a Toa and becoming a Turaga. They never saw it again. Yet despite his efforts against it, it leveled half the city, ensuring that no trading ship would ever again enter the once-bustling port city again.

And the Matoran blamed their lone Turaga, the Plasma-Turaga. Helpless against so many angered Matoran, he was locked in a tower and sentenced to life imprisonment. His only solace was that he still had a life to live.

Still, he knew that he would not, could not stand to live his twilight days out imprisoned unfairly. Dark thoughts rippled through his mind; he would have his revenge on his former charges.

And his city would again be the greatest... whatever it took.


After so many years, though, the Matoran decide it is not enough to jail the Turaga they judge guilty. Today is the day they exile the Plasma-Turaga.

A sneering Fe-Matoran yanks open the single metal door in the stone prison-tower, and the Plasma-Turaga stumbles out, revealing no hint of defiance. He walks between rows of his former charges, who stare coldly ahead, pretending not to see the elder they betrayed long ago. Reaching the ceremonial gate beyond the standing Matoran, he finally smiles faintly.

As the gates click softly shut behind him for the last time, he whirls and touches his Plasma-staff to a weak point in the stiff stone wall, then stands back as the stone begins to melt.

“As it began only to end, so it must end to reach a beginning,” says the Plasma-Turaga softly.

And the last standing walls in the town fall inward, upon the town’s denizens…